Monopoly: Buy everything you land on! Don't buy property sets already owned by more than one player. Build houses on your lowest valued properties first. These properties cost less and are worth it early on. Later in the game, stay in jail for as long as you can. You'll keep earning money, and pay nothing. The orange properties are the most valuable. They are the most landed on, due to their location from jail.

Connect 4: Drop your disc in the bottom, middle column. Even if both players play perfectly, you will always win within 41 moves.

Chess: Checkmate in 4 moves. Using your bishop for protection, move the queen in for the kill. Checkmate!

Hungry Hungry Hippos: Don't just mash the lever, keep the mouth propped open. Hold down the lever about 2/3 of the way down. Stray balls will roll into your mouth. Yum.

Battleship: When hunting for enemy ships, imagine the ocean as a checkerboard. Never strike within one space of a miss. This will cut the need for random guessing by half. If you hide smaller ships at a "t," your opponent may be fooled, and may decide to attack elsewhere.

I have a classic Monopoly set and it's true, at least your first assertion that the rules say if you land on a property and don't buy it, it immediately goes up for auction. We never played it that way but that is the rule. There is no landing on "get out of jail", there's no such space on the original board.

I've found out that a good beginning move in Battleship, esp. when playing with a computer, and playing salvo option: Make your first game on a diagonal in the general area of the middle of the board: Ie, 3c, 4d, 5e, 6f, 7g. That guarantees if one of their ships is anywhere within a significant part of the board, you'll hit one space. Then, next game, focus on the ship you hit (turn two: use two shots to cover vertical and horizontal orientation of first hit, with the rest of the your shots either finishing the original diagonal, or another parallel diagonal two spaces over. Turn three: Complete sinking first ship if needed, moving on to repeat with each one you hit. Almost always most efficient way to play.

Aw, but it's not a slow news day. There are other things on AOL today including the story about the Fed Ex truck killing a bunch of students on a bus. But it's happier to delve into old board games, brings back fun memories for a lot of us.